BT, Vodafone need 5 years to replace Huawei without ‘blackouts’
- BT estimates that it would take ‘ideally seven’ years to swap out Huawei gear because of the practical limitations on closing streets and dispatching engineers to sites
- Vodafone said replacing thousands of Huawei base stations and antennas across the country would cost in the lower end of ‘single-figure billions’
BT Group and Vodafone Group told British lawmakers they would need at least five years to swap out equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies if the government decides on strict rules that would ban the company’s products from being used in 5G mobile networks.
It would cost Vodafone on the lower end of “single-figure billions” to swap out its thousands of Huawei base stations and antennas across the country, according to Andrea Dona, Vodafone’s head of UK networks, speaking to the British Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee on Thursday.
Dona said it would take a minimum of five years to swap Huawei out without disruption.
Howard Watson, BT’s chief technology and information officer, agreed and said it would take “ideally seven” because of the practical limitations on closing streets and dispatching engineers to sites.
“It is logistically impossible, I believe, to get to zero in a three-year period,” said Watson, referring to the time frame targeted by some Conservative party lawmakers. “That would literally mean blackouts for customers on 4G and 2G as well as 5G throughout the country.”